Trump sidelines JD Vance as he kills off VP's ambitious Iran deal

Sign up HERE to our DC Insider newsletter - your guide to what’s rocking Washington, rattling the White House and setting tongues wagging on the Hill Published: 10:44 EST, 12 November 2026 | Updated: 11:06 EST, 12 November 2026 Donald Trump has pulled JD Vance off the Iran war and put him to work hunting fraud in Democratic cities instead.‘We don’t need a deal with Iran,’ the president wrote on Truth Social Thursday. 'Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!'In the same post, Trump ordered his vice president to turn his ‘complete and total attention’ to what he called massive corruption and crime in Democrat-run cities and states. The order strips Vance of his directive to negotiate an end to the war that he has carried since last spring.Vance had recently written to General Mohsen Rezaei, one of the regime's most senior officials, proposing a fresh round of comprehensive talks that he would lead himself. However, Trump has spent recent weeks privately disparaging the June memorandum of understanding that Vance helped broker over the summer, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump reportedly claimed it handed Tehran the months it needed to rebuild its military arsenal and generate oil money before Washington clamped a naval blockade back on.Prior to the war, Vance was one of the only cabinet officials to privately advise Trump not to launch strikes against Iran. The order strips Vance of his directive to negotiate an end to the war that he he has carried since last spring Trump has spent recent weeks privately disparaging the June memorandum of understanding that Vance helped broker over the summer An oil tanker burns after being hit by an Iranian strike in the ship-to-ship transfer zone at Khor al-Zubair port near Basra, Iraq, late Wednesday, March 11Trump has still not said how he means to finish the war, and has been turning over options that run from heavier bombing to pulling back and leaving the problem to Arab allies.A day after Republicans lost their majorities in the House and Senate, the vice president blamed the war for the party's midterm defeat in a post on X. He flew to Pakistan in April at Trump’s direction and sat with Iranian leaders through a marathon session in Islamabad that broke up without a resolution.On Monday he met Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani before going on to see Trump and senior White House officials, with Doha floated as a venue for the next round.Rezaei has hardened his language since the letter, warning that any American base used in a new attack would be a legitimate target and dismissing the prospect of negotiations as ‘imaginary talks.’Tehran wants the naval blockade lifted, frozen assets released and oil sanctions eased before it sits down at all.Meanwhile, the White House is demanding that Iran agree to hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium and disband its nuclear program. A White House official denied that Trump had expressed any regret over the June memorandum and said the American negotiators had acted in good faith.